Posts Tagged: "copyright infringement"

Jerk.com is one of those sites on the Internet that is the poster-child for everything wrong with the Internet and the anonymous communications that are so commonplace. The Internet is the refuge for cowards that wouldn’t have the guts to approach someone and say what they really feel to their face. Shrouded in secrecy provided by the Internet anonymous cowards become emboldened to say vile things and stoop to ridiculous lows — even publishing pictures of young children and asking the Internet community to vote on whether the minor is a jerk.

Simply stated, the OPEN Act would be completely and totally ineffectual and, therefore, it must be opposed. There is simply no point in enacting more pointless legislation, we have enough pointless legislation already. Content creators cannot create in a vacuum devoid of economic reality. If you take eyeballs away and/or provide things for free that are supposed to be paid for you are causing injury and making it all the more difficult to be a content creator. Think about it for a second. The content that you most value, is that created by commercial enterprises or people just doing it for free as a hobby in their spare time? If you are honest with yourself we both know the answer.

Yes, I had the audacity to say what is objectively correct. There is no absolute right under the First Amendment to engage in false or misleading speech. Despite the fact that this statement is legally 100% correct you would have thought I was engaging in treasonous behavior. What made it all the more comical was that it was the anarchists who seemed most upset, both in comments on IPWatchdog and in a variety of Twitter and blog articles that sought to paint me as some kind of crazy. You see the anarchists got so upset because the only play in their playbook is to lie and misrepresent in order to pull the wool over the eyes of enough people that they can get their way. That is where America is currently and if you ask me that is wholly unacceptable.

We must find reasonable ways to stop infringement of intellectual property on the Internet. Such a solution must be fair to the victim of the infringement. It must uphold the principles of the Constitution of the United States. And it must not break the Internet. SOPA and PIPA may not be perfect implementations of such protection, but they meet all of these requirements. There may be better strategies that can be reached through measured and thoughtful debate, but not through excessive hyperbole and misrepresentation.

As for the particulars of SOPA, perhaps there are some who are against the legislation for valid, thoughtful reasons and would like to see something better. That, however, seems to be the substantial minority. Those who are against SOPA seem to want to protect online piracy as if they are entitled to access the creative works of others for free. In economic terms those who steal intellectual property are freeloaders. These freeloaders are just like the many non-productive members of society who only take and give nothing back, expecting those of us who are productive to pick up the tab for them. There are certainly people in society who need and deserve help, and we should be there to help them, but by any fair estimate the entitlement mentality is running amok. No one “needs and deserves” free access to the latest blockbuster movie the opened just yesterday in theaters.

When copying has occurred, much of the code may have changed by the time it’s examined due to the normal development process or to disguise the copying. For example identifiers may have been renamed, code reordered, instructions replaced with similar instructions, and so forth. However, perhaps one comment remains the same and it’s an unusual comment. Or a small sequence of critical instructions is identical. Correlation is designed to produce a relatively high value based on that comment or that sequence, to direct the detective toward that similarity. If correlation were simply a percentage of copied lines, the number could be small and thus missed entirely among the noise of normal similarities that occur in all programs.

On November 9, 2011, the United States District Court for the Eastern District of California, per Senior Judge Terry J. Hatter, Jr., granted Costco a summary judgment victory due to the fact that Omega engaged in copyright misuse. Yes, the plot thickened. The district court originally granted summary judgment to Costco on the basis of the first sale doctrine, which was overturned by the Ninth Circuit and then affirmed by the Supreme Court in the tie decision, or non-decision of December 2010. That meant that the case would proceed because the first sale doctrine summary judgment victory was erased. But not so fast! Judge Hatter had other ideas!

Changes were made in the copyright laws of the United States in order to ensure that what David LaMacchia did would be criminal in the future. Nevertheless, those changes to the copyright laws did not put an end to piracy on the Internet, nor could they have been realistically expected to do so. Corporations, entrepreneurs, artists and creators have lobbied the United States Congress for changes in the law to help them protect their copyrighted works, but they have also increasingly relied upon technological measures to protect their copyrighted works. While there is no legal requirement that a copyright holder take steps to secure or sequester material in order to avail themselves of the protection offered by U.S. copyright laws, there is no prohibition against copyright owners seeking to use technological means to preserve their rights. Prudence dictates content creators continually monitor to see if there is ongoing infringement, take steps to make such infringement more difficut and do whatever can be done to address infringement when (not if) it is discovered.

As a general rule, a copyright lasts for the life of the creator PLUS another 70 years. So your grandchildren and great-grandchildren can benefit from your creation well after you have left this earth. For the price the rights you obtain with a federal registration are a true bargain! File early and often my friends! You can never have too many copyrights, and invariably if you pick and choose when to file you will wish you had applied for a copyright sooner once someone is infringing. By then it will be too late for statutory damages and attorneys fees, which is unfortunate. The early bird gets the worm, and those quick to file a copyright application reap the most rewards.

With the new school year rapidly approaching I thought I might take this opportunity to provide some answers to questions I am frequently asked relating to copyrights by educators and administrators. I have tried to be as thorough as possible, but thorough and complete answers are well beyond the scope of this article. Complete thoroughness is also difficult any time you are dealing with copyrights, particularly in an educational context, because the creator owns “exclusive rights,” but “fair use” grants permission to anyone, particular educators, to use at least portions of copyrighted works.

I don’t doubt that the Google Legal Team is an excellent department, and undoubtedly praiseworthy. It is also correct to say that they are dealing on nearly a daily basis with cutting edge issues that relate to the use of intellectual property in a still young medium — the Internet. It is also true to observe that they have had to deal with antitrust matters, patent litigations, copyright and trademark matters, not to mention the undoubtedly countless private matters that we haven’t yet learned about and many we won’t ever learn about. Nevertheless, I wonder whether there is a premature victory lap or recognition that is just slightly ahead of accomplishment. Certainly if Google scores a final victory in the Rosetta Stone appeal on trademarks (more below) and can resurrect the book settlement (more below) that would go a long way to justifying this award, I just wonder whether it might be a year ahead of schedule and a bit akin to President Obama winning the Nobel Peace Prize after only a few months in Office.

Copyright infringement has nothing to do with citation or linking back. A copyright owners rights have been infringed if another reproduces the work without their permission with or without citation. In the minds of some copyright infringement is synonymous with plagiarism. Plagiarism, however, is the passing off of the work of another as your own without citation. Legally, however, copyright infringement is merely copying, with or without appreciation of the wrong. So those who cite and link back are not absolved from copyright infringement. They are misappropriating an original work and free-riding. There is nothing creative, laudatory or commendable about free-riding.

We shouldn’t fool ourselves and try and pretend that the lack of respect for intellectual property rights is limited to those who seek to share movies, music or make a buck selling knock-off products. Everyone who produces original content on the Internet is at risk of having that content stolen; simply cut and pasted onto some other website or blog. Even if it is not passed off as original content and you do get “credit” the copyist is using your work for their own benefit. They are stealing eyeballs, diverting traffic and likely costing you money. At the very least, they are free riding, which is a hard pill to swallow.

I am really looking forward to these PLI programs in particular. I will be signed up to attend via webcast the programs I cannot make live, and I will be in in Chicago, IL in March for the Patent Bar Review Course and in New York City for the 5th Annual Patent Law Institute from February 17-18, 2011. If your firm is a privileged member you can attend these and all other PLI programs for free, with the exception of the Patent Bar Review Course.

The fact that the outsourcing of patent searches and the preparation of patent applications violates U.S. law only makes perfect sense, particularly when you factor into consideration the requirements of 35 U.S.C. 181 (re: national security) and 35 U.S.C. 184 (re: foreign filing licenses). By openly and willingly tolerating the outsourcing of preparation work of patent applications the clear intention of 35 U.S.C. 181 is subverted. What good does a secrecy order make if the the information relative to the invention has already been sent overseas?